


Motherland Blood

by Funkspiel



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Fairy Transformation, Gen, Kidnapping, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Shrinking, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-02 04:33:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16298249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Funkspiel/pseuds/Funkspiel
Summary: In researching the man he intended to impersonate, Grindelwald finds that Percival Graves, Director of Magical Security, is far more unique and powerful than anyone could have imagined -- just not for the reasons anyone expected. For reasons that stem back to the Old Ways, to the grassy plains of his ancestors and the Seelie Court. And Grindelwald intends to remind him of it.





	Motherland Blood

“You know, Mr. Graves, you are a rather extraordinarily powerful wizard. Did you know that?” Grindelwald asked as though discussing something mundane, his tone a direct contradiction to his actions as he knelt over his captive and carefully finished the intricate circle around him.

Graves tried turning his head this way and that to see the circle, to see if he could recognize it, but his vision was obscured in this position – tied up like a worm on his back in its middle. He gnashed his teeth around the gag in his mouth and glared daggers at the madman. He renewed his struggle with the restraints suddenly, viciously, as he caught sight of Grindelwald finishing the circle, but it was too late. Light bloomed to life where his chalk lines finally met, rapidly filling all his intricate drawings with a chilling glow until Graves was caught in their soft illumination. He waited for something to happen. He waited for unimaginable pain, for death, for torture.

It never came.

He fell slack, confused, and glared at Grindelwald through the light blue wall glowing semi-transparently between them, stemming from the circle on the ground. Grindelwald smiled, pleased.

“Now that I know you won’t run off, let’s have a proper chat, shall we?”

He snapped his fingers and in a rush of winding black smoke, the ropes and gag disappeared as though they had never been. Graves quickly staggered to his feet, stumbling only slightly when blood rushed to his head. He panted, lips chapped from the gag, and growled, “What the fuck is the meaning of this?”

“Look for yourself,” Grindelwald purred, gesturing to the circle. “Do you recognize it?”

He looked down and blinked. Now that he could view it properly, he _could_ recognize it. He spun in a slow circle to be sure, taking in all its intricate markings and – yes. There was no doubt. It was a fairy circle.

Graves laughed – actually laughed – and looked up at Grindelwald in surprise, expression crossed between _you’re an idiot_ and _surely you’re not **that big** of an idiot, what were you thinking? _

_What’s the catch?_

He had seen these traps before, these fairy circles. Elaborate spiraling marks that could be drawn only by the most skillful and focused of wizards. The more powerful the creature inside, the more intricate the circle needed to be – and after taking this circle in, Graves counted himself flattered. To call it complex was an understatement. He had only seen one other more unique, and even then, it had taken more than one wizard to contain the Fae being it had trapped.

If done correctly it was a powerful trap; capable of containing and bartering with even the most powerful of the Fae. But it was also taboo between the wizarding world and the Seelie Courts.

Graves put his hands on his hips and stared at Grindelwald before shaking his head.

“I’m flattered, but you have to be kidding. You’re cleverer than this, Grindelwald.”

Grindelwald just kept smiling and tilted his head playfully, “Oh?”

Graves blinked slowly, well and truly baffled as he realized that Grindelwald was quite serious. He let out a surprised little breath and scoffed, “You can’t seriously think this fairy circle will do anything to me. It only works on the Fae.”

“I’m well aware of who it can and cannot contain, Mr. Graves,” Grindelwald replied.

That gave Graves pause. He had lost his mind, that was the only verdict. The bastard was loony. Certainly explained a lot. He’d need to wrap this up quickly.

“Right,” Graves said, looking up at him through an appeasing brow. He made his way across the rather wide circle to its edge. “Well, if we’re quite done here I think it’s time—”

He yelped embarrassingly when he walked face first into what felt like a cement fucking wall. His hand shot to his nose as he staggered back, eyes wide over the cup of his hands and staring at Grindelwald as the madman just continued to smile, even chuckled.

“So you _don’t_ know,” Grindelwald said, “Interesting.”

Graves barely heard him, mind spinning. He was trapped. Trapped in a fucking _fairy circle_. It wasn’t possible. His eyes scanned for a rune out of a place, anything that would signify that the circle had been adjusted in any way to also somehow target wizards. But there was no hint of any alteration. It was a powerful circle, made for capturing powerful, old Fae. So why was _he_ trapped?

Graves brushed at his nose and scowled when his fingers came back red, but was grateful that his nose didn’t feel broken. Blood pattered down onto the circle at his feet in thick drops and disappeared into the light. He brushed the worst of it onto his sleeve.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“I’ve caught myself a rather old Fae,” Grindelwald said cheerfully, “Or rather, a very young Fae of a very old bloodline. Imagine my surprise when I looked into you and found your line goes back to the Old Ways.”

Graves snorted and immediately regretted it, red leaking from his nose again. He pressed his sleeve against it and growled, “Old Ways? The Graves line is old, but it doesn’t go back into the into the _Old Ways_. I’m a _man_ , just as my father was and his father before him.”

“Oh your father was a man, as was your mother; there’s no doubt about that. But these things have a way of jumping generations, my boy. Laying latent in some, blooming in others. How long has it been since you were home?”

Graves’ pulse twitched in his temple and he forcefully bit down his irritation at the word ‘boy’. They were of similar ages, for Merlin’s sake.

“You would know how long it’s been,” he spat, “ _You_ abducted me from it.”

Graves blinked, the last few words strange in his mouth, although he didn’t know why. His tongue felt suddenly alien to him; wrapping around a vowel here or there differently than it should have.

“No, not from that fake life. Your _home_ , child. _Ireland_. The _NeverNever._ ”

Graves blinked. Surely he was dreaming. Surely all of this madness was simply a dream. Because there was no way an internationally wanted madman had abducted him from his home, trapped him in a fairy circle and was accusing him of being a Fae.

He threw both hands out at his sides, truly at a loss for what to do, and said, “You’ve fucking lost it. I’m not a _child._ I’m a _man,_ American born and bred, as was my father. Maybe Irish is in the blood somewhere, but I’m not from Ireland. And I’m certainly not from the blasted _NeverNever._ ”

As though the word had been a trigger, that strange sensation in his mouth doubled. He wiggled his jaw as though it merely needed to pop and ran his tongue over his teeth, distracted, but the feeling would not fade.

On the other side of the circle, Grindelwald watched him with a pleased, expectant look.

“Something the matter, Mr. Graves?”

“Yeah, you _abducted_ me—” He began to rant, fire rushing to his cheeks and through his blood, only to stumble to a halt when the words hit his ears. He had always had a bit of a bland, regal accent; New York’s northern tone had never quite settled onto his tongue like it had for some of his Aurors. But when he just spoke, it almost sounded…

Irish.

He rubbed at his mouth with trembling fingers he tried to hide, glaring overtop them as he stared at Grindelwald. The dark wizard had done something, that was the only explanation. If there was something wrong with the circle he couldn’t see it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. The man was playing with him. Making him believe he was something he was not. But he feared opening his mouth again. He feared confirmation.

“I’ve been studying you, Mr. Graves,” Grindelwald said, his tone more serious all of a sudden, making Graves’ heart pound inside his chest. “Preparing to take your face, your life, your station. But as I did, I noticed something odd. It takes even the keenest of witches and wizards ages to develop the ability to do magic without a piece of foci to guide them, and yet you started doing wandless magic as early as your school days. You are a duelist uncontended, top of your class, youngest Director of Magical Security in both America’s and Europe’s equivalent history. A once in a generation wizard at first glance, and yet it felt wrong somehow. But it wasn’t impossible that you could be…”

He trailed off as he began to walk in a wide, lazy circle around Graves’ strange prison, the light illuminating his pale face and uncommon eyes eerily.

“I earned me way,” Graves said, then ground his teeth at the sound of his own voice, _his grammer,_ unable to keep Grindelwald’s gaze. His fingers brushed his throat as though he might find some reason there as to why this was happening – but it was as smooth and normal as always, giving him no answers.

“I have no doubt that you did,” Grindelwald said, mercifully not commenting on the thickness of his new and growing accent. “And I was quick to write you off as merely an extraordinary example of wizarding potential… But then I found a rather unique record from your mentor when you were training to become an Auror. Head Auror Kingston, of the recently deceased family line Kingston, wrote in a review of your conduct to be promoted to Senior Auror at such a tender age that you were one of a kind. That you had a way of predicting where a criminal would be, how best to infiltrate a location, and seemingly what your suspect was going to do before they ever did it. That you could pick up a piece of evidence in your hands – seemingly erroneous evidence – and connect dots from it that were unfathomable to naked observation.”

“Exaggeration,” Graves shot back, jaw tight as he tried to control the sound of his own voice, careful and slow around his vowels – but it didn’t help much. “I’m just a man. If I were more than that, I would’ve seen _you_ coming, wouldn’t I?”

“That would be a fair point if I had not taken the measures I did to blindside you, darling. My case never truly touched your desk, did it? No evidence fell into your hands, no real information or foci with which to premonition anything. You only had your President’s word to be on the lookout for any relations in the New York underground to me – and I was sure to keep my affiliations in New York silent until I could properly reach you myself.”

Graves fell slack at the realization and murmured, “You think I’m a Seer.”

“No. I think you _can_ See. Seers are witches and wizards, my dear. Unique among us human, magical folk. But for the Fae it is but a matter of rank and blood – both of which you have in spades.”

“For the last time, you blasted _lunatic_ , I’m not one of the Fae,” Graves seethed, eyes tracking Grindelwald until the man finally stopped in front of him again, closer to the wall of his prison than before and – taller… than Graves remembered.

Dread pooled into his gut, cold and greasy, but he tried to push it away. Surely he just hadn’t noticed that the man was taller than him before, he told himself. He had been preoccupied with being _kidnapped_ , no time for height contests.

But for some reason it felt wrong for Grindelwald to be looking down at him.

“What do you truly know of… what did you call it… _fairy circles?_ ”

Graves stepped back unbidden. For the first time in a long time he felt unsure of his knowledge. He resisted the urge to look down at the circle again, to confirm he hadn’t missed anything, and instead kept Grindelwald’s mismatched gaze.

“Normally they contain the Fae. Make it easier to converse and barter with them. Obviously this isn’t the same, so who fucking knows what _your_ circle is or what it does.”

“That is one service the circle performs, yes, and it _is_ a fairy circle. But they also do so much more than that. These circles,” he purred, gesturing to his work, “Create a space between the NeverNever and this world. A gateway, if you will. And while a Fae creature is trapped in that space, it not only contains them – it reveals their true form.”

Graves rolled his eyes, more convinced than ever that Grindelwald was toying with him. The madman was bored and gloating, that’s what it had to be. Playing with him to pass time until he decided to go on another murder spree.

Graves gestured at his throat and said, “What? It revealed that somewhere, someone in me bloodline was _Irish_? Fascinating. Definitely a good use of high level magic, well done.”

Something mixed between pity and amusement – as though Graves were some cute, dumb dog – crossed Grindelwald’s face. He sucked in a soft, tsking breath like an “aw” and said, “Is that truly the only thing you think has changed?”

His heart beat a crescendo into his chest and up his throat, his pulse rising.

“Nothing’s changed,” Graves growled. “You’re _playing_ with me. This isn’t real. An illusion, some spell or—”

“—This is no illusion, Mr. Graves. Take a look at your clothing, darling, and tell me nothing has changed.”

God, he didn’t want to. The hairs on the back of his neck and forearms all stood at attention, his skin prickling. He looked slowly, but before his eyes ever fell upon himself, his mind was already racing – searching through the feedback of his nerves. His pants felt loose on his hips, and he wondered if he Grindelwald had simply gotten to him before or after he had taken off his belt. His shirt felt roomy, and when he looked down he had to swallow down a confused moan.

His normally trimly fitted shirt was baggy on his frame, not just long but wide. His sleeves were beginning to creep further over his hands than they had that morning, and his pants drooped around his hips – belt loose and useless. He was losing weight, slowly but surely. Losing weight and, and…

Mercy Lewis, he was shrinking. He looked back up, wide-eyed and lost for words, and realized he had to look up further still to meet Grindelwald’s gaze than a minute ago.

“What did you do?” He asked hoarsely.

“Nothing,” Grindelwald said. “Were you a man, this circle would do nothing to you. But you are not a man, Percival Graves. You are one of the Old Ones, latent and finally blooming. I’ve been told your lot tends to start off rather small when they go as long as you have without being in their True Skin.”

The changes expedited suddenly, as though they had only been taking their time because he had not been paying attention to them. His body suddenly jerked down a full inch, staggering him, then another all at once. His clothing well and truly was beginning to sag on him as his very bones grew lighter and became hollow like a bird’s. It didn’t hurt, but he couldn’t help but feel it should. It was unnatural after all, whatever spell Grindelwald was using to force this strange transformation upon him. Right?

His back began to feel strange; wet and malleable where it had been firm mere moments ago. Something began to part from his skin, out of sight beneath his shirt and terrifying. Graves felt as though his shirt was suddenly pinning him strangely, binding him, and he shuddered. With shaking hands he rushed to remove his shirt, popping the buttons violently and tugging it off, unable to bite back a little horrified sob when something from his back stuck wetly to it and pulled unnaturally.

His shirt fell to the ground wet, glimmering and coated in a strange pearly, silver liquid. He stumbled, eyes fastened upon the strange goo when suddenly something fluttered weakly behind him. He turned in a circle, convinced something had touched him, but the weight just followed, hanging from his back.

“Beautiful,” Grindelwald whispered, voice captivated as though he had just witnessed the world’s last sunrise. Graves whirled to look at him, contorting as though he could reach the strange protrusions himself. He couldn’t, but whatever they were, they continued to flutter disorientingly, flickering in the edges of his view.

“What the fuck did you do to me?” Graves asked, more desperate than angry now. “What the fuck is on me back?”

Grindelwald smiled and waved one hand theatrically, manifesting a floor length mirror from thin air – wide, ornate and telling.

Graves stilled, one hand frozen in its reach behind him as he saw what had bloomed from his own flesh. Wings. Large, tapered wings, thin like gossamer and glimmering like nothing he had ever seen before. They were dark blue at their base and steadily climbed into something even richer and brighter before capping off with a neat black line that framed their edges and elegant points. Fairy wings. He had fucking _fairy wings._

His heart threatened to explode inside his chest as half a foot left him in a burst, giving him no time to adjust to his new appendages or perspective. He had to scramble for his pants when the change left him too slight for his hips to hold them up anymore, the fabric bunched in his grip as he lifted them. He could see how badly he was shaking in the mirror; but his face more than his trembling made him look terribly young and afraid.

He gasped, fingers lifting to his face as wrinkles melted from his skin, leaving him as gaunt, smooth and baby faced as he had been in his training academy days. He bit his lip to contain the sob that burned in his throat only to yelp when a sharp little fang pierced it, his canines suddenly dangerous. He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand and his blood came back pearly and glittering.

“No,” he stuttered, rubbing at his lip again only to come back with more of that inhuman blood. “No, no, no, no, no!”

“It’s alright, darling,” Grindelwald purred, oddly soothing. “I’ll guide you through your new life. It will all make sense soon.”

But Graves just shook his head as his body jumped down another half foot, then another. He was the size of a child now. Christ, how small was he going to get?

In the mirror his hair grew glossy and the silver at his temples faded, his black locks bleeding into something more akin to a moonless night than any human color. His eyes began to warm, the dark brown he was familiar with rising to a melted honey color, hot and glowing. His ears stretched into cute and tapered little points. Finally his pants slipped from his hands and he stood in a pool of his old clothing, naked and misty eyed. He looked unrecognizable.

Grindelwald was a giant now when he looked up at him. Light years away even as he kneeled to better watch Graves shrink.

It continued on even when Graves thought surely he could shrink no more. On and on until he was well and truly the size of a pixie, about as tall as the length of a grown man’s hand and as slender as a wisp. His skin glittered beautifully, his hair somewhat longer now and curling cutely about his ears. Runes began to glimmer and appear on his skin, elegantly framing the base of his wings, the line of his spine, his forearms and the backs of his hands. Old runes that, now that he looked at them, he could have sworn he had seen before.

They confused him as much as they comforted him, and as distracted as he was by their scrawling paths on his hands, he didn’t notice Grindelwald breaching the circle. His mind grew fuzzy as he squinted and tried to make out the meaning of the symbols on his flesh. He noticed Grindelwald too late because of it. He tried to run, but his body’s first response was to fly. His wings trembled like the legs of a fowl and fluttered uselessly, lifting him from the ground when he had intended to run and causing him to stumble when he fell suddenly back to the ground.

He fell to his hands and knees, wide-eyed and breathing hard when the rim of a large glass bottle surrounded him on all sides, trapping him against the floor.

“No,” he gasped, standing as quickly as he could. He reached for his magic, but it had changed – somehow alien to him now. Disapparation when he called for it didn’t work as it once had, and he stumbled when a piece of cardstock slipped between his feet, the rim of the bottle and the floor, and swept across.

Grindelwald upended the bottle slowly and surprisingly gently, shaking it only slightly whenever Graves did not budge until finally the director was standing at the bottom of a bulbous glass prison, the cardstock removed and a simple silver lid with holes screwed atop it.

He reached into himself to blow the top off, to shatter the bottle – anything to be free even if it meant falling five or so feet to the floor as small as he was – but nothing happened. Every attempt left him even more exhausted, and finally he fell to his ass, panting and shaking – drained and sagging into the bottle’s pregnant curve.

He had to adjust himself for his wings and couldn’t quite hold back the wetness on his lashes when they simply served to remind him of how much he had changed, how much damage had been done.

The bottle was lifted so he was on level with Grindelwald’s eyes, and he quickly wrapped his knees and arms into a ball to obscure as much of himself from that piercing gaze as he could.

“Extraordinary,” Grindelwald breathed in a hushed voice. “You truly are one of a kind, Mr. Graves.”

“I’m a man,” Graves whispered even as doubt began to claw into his mind. How was this possible? How had Grindelwald done this?

He looked through the bottom of the glass forlornly to see the circle that had changed his life was innocently dull now, the glowing sigils merely chalk once more, the edge of it broken by the scuff of Grindelwald’s heel.

He felt strange, as though his little body could not contain the gravity of emotions threatening to overwhelm him. He didn’t trust his voice. He could barely retain his trembling, silent stoicism. His wings fluttered, giving away his turmoil.

Grindelwald’s lips pulled into a sympathetic curve and he crooned, “Don’t fret, darling, I have you. I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

Graves held his knees tighter and looked away. Fuck, that was worse. That was so much worse.

“It won’t always be like this,” Grindelwald promised as he began to walk them both away from the room. “Greatness from small beginnings, Mr. Graves. You’ll grow into your blood. You’ll be a Fae unlike the world has ever seen before.”

He took him into Graves’ old bedroom and gestured to the ceiling just above his bed. From it a long and spiraling gold tendril appeared, thin and elegantly blooming leaves on its many curls and spirals until finally forming a curving hook above the bed. With another wave of his hand, a similar gold chain appeared around the bottle’s top, and with it Grindelwald hung him like a trophy above his bed.

Graves had become a glorified ornament in his own room.

He could only watch as Grindelwald diverted his attention from him once he was certain Graves was properly secured, instead puttering around the room to investigate Graves’ life. He took a pair of silk pajamas from Graves’ drawer and slipped into them; and Graves just watched on, caught up in the surreal turn his life had taken.

As Grindelwald continued to go about the room, doing this and that to make himself more comfortable in a stranger’s home, Graves finally stood. It was an opportunity; to see it as anything else would be a waste. So as slowly and unnoticeably as possible, he arched to reach the top of the bottle, but it was just too tall. He didn’t trust his wings, so instead he reached for his magic again. It felt so strange, as though every spell he had known was now in a language his magic didn’t understand. But he tried. He visualized what he wanted and focused on what it would look like rather than conveying in words what he wanted. In his mind’s eye he watched the lid of the bottle slowly unscrew. After a moment, the silver cap began to rattle ever so slightly. Hope bloomed in his chest –

– and then exhaustion clutched him, different than before. He yawned before he could help himself and stumbled back, catching himself once only to fall onto his ass again, his hollow bones suddenly so heavy. His body went slack against the glass and he just barely managed to turn his head to see Grindelwald behind him, one hand on the bulb beneath him, coaxing magic through the glass and into his skin.

“Rest,” Grindelwald said, and Graves screamed inside as his eyelids drooped and grew too heavy to hold open much longer. “You need to recover your strength, darling, and I need my beauty sleep as well. I’d rather not listen to you ping back and forth like a moth all night.”

Something furious raged in Graves’ chest at that – _well you should have fucking thought of that before you…_ – then fell mute as he lost the energy to care. His wings fluttered sleepily once, twice, then fell still. Graves barely kept his eyes open, breathing so slow.

“Goodnight, my little Fae,” Grindelwald crooned, smiling as he watched the director’s eyes finally fall closed. Then he slipped into the director’s bed, extinguished the light from the lamp with a flicker of will, and slept – pleased with the spoils of his victory.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of These Stories Belong To Us, a collection on AO3 running alongside the final Kickstarter campaign for a fanfic documentary, also called These Stories Belong To Us. (And if you are a fanfic writer, email info@fanficdoc.com to inquire about adding your own story to this collection!)


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